REFLECTIONS ON MY WALT DISNEY WORLD COLLEGE PROGRAM EXPERIENCE

My first drawing at Disney's Hollywood Studio

The biggest thing that I learned during my internship came from the most painful experience that I had. The experience wasn’t related to the internship, but when experienced within the same time span, it reinforced something that I was learning about myself. I am a writer. I have never wanted to pigeonhole myself into a vocation. I want to be free to explore, to learn and to create. I want to live making a difference. It appears that the best way for me to do that is to write. It took losing a friend over something that I had written to teach me that; I thought would cause some uproar but was worth putting out there. I never thought that it would cost me the relationship of a person I love. I am not Dickens, Sinclair or Beecher Stowe. I don’t even know if the written word can change the world in the way that it once did, but if I am going to reach my potential, I have to give it a shot. If it is true that I have power in my writing, then I need to use it to do the right thing. The Corporate Communication class taught me that I could not go into public relations with any company that wants to obfuscate, deny, prevaricate or otherwise deceive the public. The truth is what matters. It isn’t the only thing that matters. Without it, life becomes too confusing. I have always wanted to work for the Disney Company, specifically at Disneyland as a sweeper. While I was not stationed in any of the parks, I found that working at a resort had some benefits. Parking was close, and I was allowed to do my job with no interference from managers. The internship itself was disappointing in that the work I was doing became mundane within six weeks of being there. Even being moved to a new resort, the job was the same. Once I learned the basics, there wasn’t really a way for me to advance though I did get to spend one day as a coordinator – that was pretty sweet. The perks were great. When I worked evenings, I was able to go into a park in the morning. I spent a lot of time at Epcot during the Food and Wine Festival. Morning shifts allowed me to go to the parks in the evening. During those days, I usually went to the drawing class at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Another lesson that I came away with are that I love the Disney parks because I can always get a hug there. It seems kind of goofy to say, but meeting with the characters always made me feel happy. They were my close friends who were always glad to see me and greeted me with the warmth of human contact. There is too little of that in my life, and I suspect in all of our lives. The other lesson that I learned was that I like being someplace where people greet each other, even if they have already seen each other that day ten times. Almost every time I drove in the pargo and passed another pargo, the other driver would wave and I would respond or vice versa, even if we just passed each other ten minutes ago. Greeting also took place in the college housing as well. It was okay to say “hello” to someone you didn’t know. It isn’t always okay in the real world.